Oh, one more thing. When the encoding was finished, the whole process started over again for some reason. I was able to look at the mp4 file because it wasn't immediately re-written like happens when it's only an mpeg conversion. This seems to be an old bug... perhaps something that got reintroduced?

Oh, one more thing. When the encoding was finished, the whole process started over again for some reason. I was able to look at the mp4 file because it wasn't immediately re-written like happens when it's only an mpeg conversion. This seems to be an old bug... perhaps something that got reintroduced?

Let me explain what I *think* is going on, why it happens, and then you can tell me if that's what's going on.. (i.e. this may not be a bug).

The tivo reports a certain file size for every show (which is displayed on the itivo table). That number is a lie. Most of the time, the real amount is 'close' but not exactly right. In some cases though, that number is WILDLY wrong (try recording 1 minute of a 1 hour show.. the tivo will report the show as being 1 minute long, but its size will be about the size of an hourlong show).

(btw: this is part of the code I inherited. If there's a better way to do this, I'm all ears, although I'm also turning pretty lazy ...

Then when you download, the tivo simply 'stops' the transfer when the show is completely downloaded. So what iTiVo does is it looks at the downloaded size compared to the size the tivo claims it should be.

If the amount is right +/- 20%, then it assumes success. If not, it tries again, with +/- 40%, etc.. on the 4th try it will accept any size.. The problem here is that I can't tell if the tivo stopped the transfer cleanly, or if there was a problem with the transfer and it should be retried.. So if it makes it to the 4th attempt, we just assume that it *really* is supposed to be incredibly short, and accept it.

So, 99% of the time, fully recorded shows never need a second pass unless there really was an error in the transfer.

So now you get to tell me if we're in the 1%, or if there is a bug .

(out of interest, did it succeed on the second try?)

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Ok, I got things to work on my 10.4 PPC - albeit a bit on the "slow side." 1 GREAT thing though - no color ghosting.

Everything works as advertised on the SD video I tested this morning. It was a 30 minute clip encoded with the iphone preset and comskip enabled.

The encoding process IS still slow though - but not NEARLY as painful as 3 hours.

It took me 50 minutes to encode a 17 minute (the 30 minute show after comskip) to the iPhone format.

That's still about 1/2 as fast as Visualhub and even slower than ffmpegX - not that I'm passing any blame here.... I just wonder if there is anything we can to to speed up the process?

Well, mencoder's antialiasing/deinterlacing is certainly more heavyweight than ffmpegs, so that might explain some slowness. As for the rest, there might be some additional compile-time flags that can be used to safely optimize the code.. feel free to look around.

Also, have you tried changing the video encoder options like I mentioned in a previous posting? that shoul drop the quality to the ffmpeg-default level somewhat, which should speed things up...

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So, 99% of the time, fully recorded shows never need a second pass unless there really was an error in the transfer.

So now you get to tell me if we're in the 1%, or if there is a bug .

(out of interest, did it succeed on the second try?)

Yes, as i recall, this *may* be the case. I'll try again if the show is still on my Tivo. It sounds like you're on to something.

with regard to the "second try" it occured AFTER iTivo was done encoding to mp4. Usually (with tivodecode or with your simple passthrough option) when this occurs, the original file is instantly overwritten. But since iTivo had converted to mp4, the original file (mpg) was not there to be overwritten. The resulting mp4 WAS SUCCESSFUL so I just canceled the download. I'll see if I can duplicate the results.

Tomorrow, I'll see if your "alternate" setting work for mencoder. I'm not too "versed" on these type of things. I'm lucky if I can properly install some of these mashups half the time. I'll give your setting a try and report back.

Its in the 'Generating MetaData' phase after transfer has completed and before turbo.264 takes over.

How long should metadata generation take? Its been about 5 minutes as I write this.

Metadata generation should be a few short seconds unless there's a bug.

However, metadata isn't supposed to be done until AFTER the encode is completed.. so the Turbo.264 was supposed to have been run and completed already (it modifies the resulting encoded file). Did it not start the encoder at all?

Can you attach the contents of /tmp/iTiVo-<username>/iTiVo.log ?

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However, metadata isn't supposed to be done until AFTER the encode is completed.. so the Turbo.264 was supposed to have been run and completed already (it modifies the resulting encoded file). Did it not start the encoder at all?

Can you attach the contents of /tmp/iTiVo-<username>/iTiVo.log ?

The encoder did not start; it did the transfer, said it was doin' the metadata thing and then just sat there until I quit or canceled the transfer and quit. the turbo.264 encoder never kicked off.

And I'm kind of embarrassed to say that I'm having trouble finding the log file! I can't even find the temp directory in the path you mentioned! I'm having a stupid moment.

The encoder did not start; it did the transfer, said it was doin' the metadata thing and then just sat there until I quit or canceled the transfer and quit. the turbo.264 encoder never kicked off.

And I'm kind of embarrassed to say that I'm having trouble finding the log file! I can't even find the temp directory in the path you mentioned! I'm having a stupid moment.

No stupid moment. Apple tried to make life difficult (user-friendly) by hiding /tmp. Apparently if you open the finder, choose Go/Go to Folder... and then type /tmp in there, it will open /tmp up

There should be a directory named iTiVo-<yourusername> in there.
Copy the file named iTiVo.log out of there.

As for the main issue at hand.. Can you run Turbo.264 manually? Since I don't have the usb device, all I can do is watch it download, then run Turbo.264 (which reports to me that I need to insert the device). So I'm guessing it is failing to find Turbo.264 on your computer.. One thing to try:

Tell me if that starts the program at least... (yeah those are completely bogus files I'm asking it to run on.. but hey.. it should still start it)

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Just FYI - I tried the Playstation 3 settings (labeled untested) and the show started, and I thought it was going to be great, but the audio and video were not in sync and after a short time (about 2 commercials), the PS3 suddenly complained that it could not play that file and stopped.

Not really much of a bug report, but hopefully useful as a datapoint.

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Please do not "Fixed Your Post" on my posts. I find that rude and annoying. Thank you for your consideration.

Just FYI - I tried the Playstation 3 settings (labeled untested) and the show started, and I thought it was going to be great, but the audio and video were not in sync and after a short time (about 2 commercials), the PS3 suddenly complained that it could not play that file and stopped.

Not really much of a bug report, but hopefully useful as a datapoint.

Hey it's a useful bug report.. Turns out I do own a PS3 so might as well start toying with the settings

-- yoav

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This version supports a bunch of meta-data related changes to use in conjunction with pyTivoX (or on its own).

Should work better for those with ppc machines.

And you can now save your user-created formats.

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Nice work. The meta data is a nice addition for iTunes sorting too. I did a SD transfer this morning with iPhone/Comskip enabled. The transfer was successful and the speed was on par with what I'd expect from a PPC machine.

I'll try some 720/1080 HD tonight and see if I get the same results. Hopefully it'll be a non-issue.

Nice work and thanks for still working on the PPC side of things. It'll keep me from dropping a couple of grand for at least a few more months

Novice iTivo user - I have been playing around with the various download options. Something that has me puzzled is that when I watch a tv thru my tivo on my sony widescreen tv I have it set to full and it fills the screen. When I use iTivo to download it and watch it then it only uses the middle of the screen. Is this something I should/tweak with dsize?

Novice iTivo user - I have been playing around with the various download options. Something that has me puzzled is that when I watch a tv thru my tivo on my sony widescreen tv I have it set to full and it fills the screen. When I use iTivo to download it and watch it then it only uses the middle of the screen. Is this something I should/tweak with dsize?

If what you mean is that after you download, it's only using a small window on your computer to show the movie, that's because most of the download formats convert to a smaller version (and even when not, your computer is usually much higher resolution than your TV). For example, iPhone converts to a 480x320 movie. The h.264 quicktime formats do not resize, but keep at the original resolution, which can be anything from 320x480 to 1920x1080, depending on the source.

Probably the easiest fix is simply to tell the viewer (I assume you view with Quicktime) to use the full screen. Load up the movie under Quicktime, and then from the menu, select View... Full Screen, or Option-F.

Edit: I just realized you might be complaining about sideboxing.. Was the above the correct fix? or are you complaining about black bars on the sides that you want the movie stretched to fill like some TVs do? If so, quicktime will has a little icon that looks like two arrows pulling to the sides (once you enter fullscreen mode). Click that, and watch your movies get deformed...

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The other approach is the google-shoot-and-hope-you-get-something. Search for mencoder plus whatever problem you're having or format you want to convert to, and see if anyone else wrote anything about it....

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Does anyone know by chance where iTivo keeps files it's downloaded/re-encoding? They aren't in my selected storage folder. I had to stop a transfer/re-encode because it had frozen (seemingly) and I want to be sure that I don't have large files floating around on my drive with no use.

Does anyone know by chance where iTivo keeps files it's downloaded/re-encoding? They aren't in my selected storage folder. I had to stop a transfer/re-encode because it had frozen (seemingly) and I want to be sure that I don't have large files floating around on my drive with no use.

All intermediate files are kept in /tmp/iTiVo-<username>/

They are deleted whenever a new encode is started, when iTiVo is started, or when iTiVo exits cleanly.

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Yoav, when the app told me that 1.7 was available, it showed some release notes, but I hit install too quick and didn't get a chance to read them. I searched the itivo site, as well as downloaded the installer, but can't seem to find those release notes anywhere. Where can I find those? Thanks!

Well I re-started the download/encoding, selecting my output to be "DVD"... however the resulting file was an mpg. (which also doesn't seem to play, even with Perian installed)

I was hoping for a VOB I could place on an actual DVD and have it load on my wife's DVD player at work so she could show her coworkers something..

Have you tried loading the output from iTiVo (whatever format you selected) into a DVD authoring program? That should make a valid chunked vob for you (or just burn the DVD for you entirely).

The DVD format (and in fact, most mpeg2 formats) are giving me a nasty headache, they work for some inputs and not others... I've mostly given up on doing anything about it, but if you figure out mencoder options to make it work, I'll gladly incorporate them.

One thing to make sure of though: If the encode didn't complete cleanly, the file is almost guaranteed to not work (there's some header information that isn't written out until the encode is completed).

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Yoav, when the app told me that 1.7 was available, it showed some release notes, but I hit install too quick and didn't get a chance to read them. I searched the itivo site, as well as downloaded the installer, but can't seem to find those release notes anywhere. Where can I find those? Thanks!

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Have you tried loading the output from iTiVo (whatever format you selected) into a DVD authoring program? That should make a valid chunked vob for you (or just burn the DVD for you entirely).

The DVD format (and in fact, most mpeg2 formats) are giving me a nasty headache, they work for some inputs and not others... I've mostly given up on doing anything about it, but if you figure out mencoder options to make it work, I'll gladly incorporate them.

One thing to make sure of though: If the encode didn't complete cleanly, the file is almost guaranteed to not work (there's some header information that isn't written out until the encode is completed).

All I did is tell iTiVo to download the program last night and encode it with the DVD preset, I was expecting to see a .VOB this morning (I let it run while I slept) so I could drop it in a VIDEO_TS folder so my wife could take it to work and show some coworkers.

The resulting file was a 1.6GB mpg (it was an hour long show, 6.6GB size wise on the TiVo). Again double clicking on the file tells me it can't be played. So I'm not even sure if it finished properly? iTiVo was just idle this morning.. no 'complete' notice and no 'failure' notice either.

I haven't tried to load it into a DVD Authoring program.. I'm assuming you mean like Toast? I'd expect it would need to transcode it yet again (two transcodings, ick).. to get that to work.

All I did is tell iTiVo to download the program last night and encode it with the DVD preset, I was expecting to see a .VOB this morning (I let it run while I slept) so I could drop it in a VIDEO_TS folder so my wife could take it to work and show some coworkers.

The resulting file was a 1.6GB mpg (it was an hour long show, 6.6GB size wise on the TiVo).

I haven't tried to load it into a DVD Authoring program.. I'm assuming you mean like Toast? I'd expect it would need to transcode it yet again (two transcodings, ick).. to get that to work.

If it's just the filename that's bothering you, rename it with a .vob extension vobs are just mpeg-2 files with stricter requirements (for one, I think they need to be under 1 gig in size or something). Since the file is already an mpeg-2 file, it wouldn't need to be recoded again.

The fact that the movie isn't playing in quicktime though isn't a good sign. It looks like the encode didn't work.

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The fact that the movie isn't playing in quicktime though isn't a good sign. It looks like the encode didn't work.

Well I'll try to do it all over tonight in another mpeg2 format I guess, since I can move those readily to DVD authoring. I didn't have the time/energy to babysit it last night. Though a completion or fail dialog would have helped alleviate the confusion.

Well I'll try to do it all over tonight in another mpeg2 format I guess, since I can move those readily to DVD authoring. I didn't have the time/energy to babysit it last night. Though a completion or fail dialog would have helped alleviate the confusion.

One quick question: Does the mpg play fine under vlc or mplayerOSX?
(quicktime's mpeg-2 component doesn't work for all files). If it does, then just rename the file with a .vob extension.. (you can have that be the default under Prefs... Advanced.. Filename Extension.)

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One quick question: Does the mpg play fine under vlc or mplayerOSX?
(quicktime's mpeg-2 component doesn't work for all files). If it does, then just rename the file with a .vob extension.. (you can have that be the default under Prefs... Advanced.. Filename Extension.)

I haven't tried it under VLC or mplayerOSX. I've had plenty luck just using the Perian codecs to play anything I've come across through Quicktime. This file, thus far is the exception.

I haven't tried it under VLC or mplayerOSX. I've had plenty luck just using the Perian codecs to play anything I've come across through Quicktime. This file, thus far is the exception.

The reason I asked is because I just tried downloading an HD source using the DVD format. It didn't play for me under quicktime (I have Perian installed too). It did work under MPlayerOSX.

Edit: So, I guess that still doesn't guarantee anything about it working in a DVD player... but...

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Well, I'm not really a codec-weenie, so I don't know what changes are needed to get everything to play nice.. All the options are controllable under 'advanced'... I just don't know what toast/quicktime needs...

Personally, I'd download it as a quicktime format (h.264) and have it re-encode when making the DVD. At least that way everything *should* be able to read it and play nice... If encoding takes too long, select a lower-res format (like iphone super-res)...

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